Mission

by Philip Spires

  “Munyasya, today you have become a martyr. You have shown to these people that what I have been saying is true.” There were murmurs of agreement at this. “You will be remembered forever, Munyasya,” he said slowly, provoking some to applaud.

  “It’s true.” “We agree.” “We can see.” The calls began to ring loud in Michael’s ears. He was trying to speak, trying frantically but in vain to find words which would explain that he had not seen the old man lie down in front of his car, but how could he not have seen him? When he walked unaided, Munyasya moved so slowly that it would have taken him many minutes to settle down so neatly on the road in front of the car. All eyes turned towards the priest, their gaze unanimously accusing him of the crime Mulonzya had invented.

  Michael remained speechless, rooted to the spot and unable to react. Then, just as he began to feel the pressure of the now silent crowd that confronted him, Munyasya laughed. For a while he had been almost ignored. Everyone had turned away, forgotten him for a while. Prostrate on the rutted red earth by the roadside, his limp body moved not an inch, but issued a long, clear bout of liquid laughter. He tried to speak, but his mouth was bloody and the sound became a gargle, spat and unintelligible. The shocked crowd looked on as he was engulfed in a near fit of laughter that was cut short only by the orgasmic spasm of his death.

  Michael took his chance. While everyone else turned to look at the dead man, some with pity but most with fear, he got in the car and started the engine. Though several people tried to stop him, he drove clear of the crowd and away up the hill. But there was nowhere for him to go. He had not wanted to try to run, to hide from the responsibility that was obviously his. It was simply that the events of weeks past and especially those of that morning had broken his spirit, had finally doused his desire to try. For the first time in his life he had admitted defeat and turned his back in shame. It was his own conscience he could no longer face.

  At the top of the hill, Michael drove straight on over the main road without stopping at the junction, straight into the compound of the Bishop’s house. Inside the house he found John O’Hara reading the Daily Nation before retiring to take his after-lunch siesta.

  “Michael, come in.” His perfunctory greeting was open and friendly, but automatic. Only when it was finished did he see Michael’s tension.

  “John, I’ve done something stupid - they’ll be here in a moment. I’ve just run over someone. I didn’t see him - the stupid old whore was lying in the road in front of the car - I had no idea he was there.” Michael’s voice cracked on the words. He was at a loss as to where to begin his description of what had happened or of how he felt.

  O’Hara stood up and slowly crossed the room toward the priest. Laying his hands reassuringly on Michael’s shoulders, he spoke quietly, but paternalistically. “Just a minute now, Michael. Let’s sit down. You’re talking riddles...”

  Michael pulled away impatiently, refusing to accept any solace. “John, they’ll be here any minute. I’ve just killed someone!”

  O’Hara sighed impatiently and raised his voice. “For God’s sake, Michael, that’s enough. Pull yourself together.”

  “What’s the point?”

  “Michael! Michael!” O’Hara’s last words were shouted at Michael’s back as the priest turned and made off towards the doorway through which he had appeared only a minute before.

  O’Hara hurried after him, making an undignified and unsuccessful grab at his shirt. Michael avoided O’Hara’s lunge with a shrug and continued towards the kitchen door and the outside. He had taken no more than two steps beyond that doorway towards his car when he stopped dead in his tracks, distracted by a crescendo of shouting to his right. As he looked around the side of the house towards the noise, he was joined by O’Hara.

  A group of ten or twelve people approached. O’Hara stepped forward to greet them, to calm them with welcoming but restraining outstretched arms. But they ignored him, brushed past him and made straight for Michael. As O’Hara looked on stunned, three men began to push Michael, all the time shouting at the top of their voices. The others stood aside and first urged them on, but then they themselves rushed to take hold of the priest. O’Hara acted quickly.

  “Stop! Stop! Wait!” He took hold of Michael whilst at the same time shouting at the others. His aging but enormous frame still possessed enough power to brush aside three of Michael’s assailants in one movement and, when they spun away to fall to the ground, the others instinctively stood back for a moment. Their indecision gave him the time he needed literally to throw Michael back towards the open door and into the kitchen. Without saying a word to the priest, he slammed the door shut behind him and, placing his bulk before it, turned to face the crowd’s anger. When, almost as one, they glanced to the side of the house and made as if to move, O’Hara’s hand dipped beneath his white robe and produced a jingling bunch of keys. “It’s all locked,” he shouted. “You can’t get in and he can’t get out. Now what’s your problem?”

  ***

  With Michael’s version of events finished, both he and O’Hara remain silent for some time. They share an impotence. Neither wants to accept what has happened. Privately they each try to see things differently, to search for the kernel of an analysis that will dissolve their shared responsibility, or excuse Michael’s mistake. Their silence testifies that none exists. When Michael speaks, he does so merely to relieve the oppression that the silence is feeding. He sounds exhausted, drained of hope. “And that’s where we came in.” There seems to be nothing more to say and, after this pleasantry, the silence again grows.

  When O’Hara finally speaks, he sets Michael’s lulled senses racing. It is clear that the Bishop’s mind is not yet fully made up. “You’ve left something out, Michael.” He waits for the priest to offer the information he wants, but it is soon obvious that his mind is quite blank. “The letter, Michael. What was in the letter?”

  Michael looks at him guardedly. Trust is beginning to evaporate. “I tried to tell you. It doesn’t matter. It’s got nothing to do with the accident. I...”

  “Michael! Stop! You’ve been consistent all along on several points. One: you were on your way here to tell me you wanted to leave the priesthood. Two: you wanted me to understand the reasons for that decision. Three: your relationship with Miss Rowlandson is the most important factor. Now we’ve heard about all the frustrations and problems of being a missionary priest. Let’s hear from Janet and then together we can decide what we should do.”

  “We?” The word rings inside Michael’s head as he reluctantly takes a single folded sheet of blue airmail paper from his shirt pocket. He exhales a tired sigh as he begins to read. The embarrassment that O’Hara suffers at having to listen to another’s personal letter is obvious, though he succeeds in suppressing the emotion for, as he sees it, Michael’s benefit.

  “My dearest Michael. Just a note to keep you in the picture. Sorry for not writing earlier, but I’ve had hardly a spare minute for weeks. First my operation. It was horrible! I had a terrible time... It turned out that I was more than four months pregnant. I couldn’t believe it. (I still don’t!) I was starting to get a little big in the tummy, but not so much that anyone would have noticed, though I did take to wearing smocks for the last couple of weeks, because I was getting so self-conscious. Anyway the ‘simple’ operation has landed me in hospital for a week. They told me I lost a lot of blood, so they are keeping me in for a few days longer than normal. They started by giving me anaesthetics or tranquilizers - I’d almost lost interest in what was happening to me by that time. Then they wheeled me off into a theatre. I was only there for a few minutes. It hardly seemed worth the trouble. They gave me some injections straight into my tummy. I wanted to cry, because I suppose that was to break the waters and kill the baby, but I was so far gone on the drugs I just let it all happen without any real feeling at all. I felt I should have cried though...

  Then I was duly
wheeled back to the ward and put back to bed. It wasn’t long before the contractions started. My God they were so painful. And they went on and on and on. I was screaming my head off and shouting for them to give me painkillers. After what seemed like a lifetime, a nurse eventually gave me an injection and I felt a little better for a while, but then the pain returned, and if anything it was worse than before. I just couldn’t help myself screaming. I felt absolutely awful about it because they had left me in the ward all the time and there were people coming out of the theatre after their operations and they all had to put up with me screaming my head off in the corner. There was one woman who was recovering after a hysterectomy. She had lost a lot of blood and was moaning to herself all the time. It was really awful.

  Eventually, when I “excreted the foetus” as they called it, I was so full of painkillers, tranquilizers and I don’t know what that I had hardly any idea what was happening. I was so detached I forgot to push. A great big cow of a nurse started shouting at me to push, but I was miles away. Then she hit me around the face... She described it later as a slap to get me to my senses, but it certainly felt like she meant it. Anyway it did the trick, I screamed my head off and then pushed like hell. My God the pain was absolutely unbearable.

  I must have passed out then, because the next thing I remember was coming round a few hours ago and being presented with your letter. Apparently Pete had been to see me earlier, but I was still too drugged to react to him in any way. I’m starting to feel a bit better, but I’ve got a drip in my arm and I feel as though I’ve been in a desert for days. My mouth and throat are so dry they feel like sandpaper, and all I’ve been allowed to have up to now is one small drink.

  The nurses have all been terrible to me. They seem to have decided to give me a bad time because I have had an abortion. Well surprise, surprise, who do you think saved the day? Yes, Pete! Honestly, he’s been marvellous. We’ve had a marvellous chat and got quite a lot of things straightened out, at least potentially anyway. I’ve decided that when I get out of here I’ll have a real talk to him with a view to finding a way of making it work between us. He’s done absolutely everything for me - really taken me under his wing. He’s got things organised for me at home, been to talk to my mother, bless him, because I couldn’t bring myself to tell her what was happening. I’ve been so confused over the last few months.

  Sorry this letter is taking so long to finish, Michael. I know you’ll be worried and I really should just get myself together and send it. I couldn’t write any more in hospital, because as I held the pen I could feel it starting to slip as the sleeping pills started to take effect. I’d already been in for four days at that stage and thought I was getting over everything, but over the next couple of days before I came home I started to feel a lot worse again. I just felt so completely sad and depressed about the whole thing. It would have been so easy to have avoided the whole trauma. And tears still come into my eyes every time I allow myself to think of what I have done.

  Pete is still wonderful. I can’t get over how much of a help he has been to me. I asked him what had brought about the change in attitude and he said it was possibly because he loved me. I didn’t believe him of course, but everything that’s happened since then has forced me to change my mind. You know I really believe him! Ever since my operation things have been better between us, better than I could ever have imagined. He even says he wants to marry me now. Funny, isn’t it, that something like that has to happen before people know their own minds? Don’t worry, by the way, I’m not going to rush into anything - apart from getting myself on the pill, of course. I have decided, though, to move in with him. It seems stupid to keep two flats on the go, after all. It might be that I’ve been feeling so clingy and insecure since my operation that I’ve just deferred to him every time when in the past there might have been a disagreement between us. Only time will tell if there has been a real change.

  Anyway there’s nothing more to tell at the moment. I’ll write to you again soon to let you know how things develop.

  Love, Janet

  P.S. I’ve just read your letter again before posting this one. I suddenly had the terrible thought that you might have been totally serious... What am I saying? When you say you love me, I know what you mean. I know you well enough to say that I love you in the same way, spiritually, that is. And thank you again for offering to help me out but I could never accept. I would have liked you to be here with me - my goodness it would have made me feel a lot easier to have had you around - but it would have been selfish of me to have had you all to myself. I know how much your offer meant, because I know how much the people of Migwani need you. Anyway now you can rest assured knowing that everything has turned out reasonably well in the end. Write soon.

  P.P.S. I feel absolutely awful about this, Michael. The letter’s been hanging around for another week and I still haven’t got my act together to post it. I am awfully sorry. Pete and I are still on really good terms and I am feeling one hundred per cent better. I almost feel back to my old self. I’m still a bit unsteady on my pins if I have do a lot of standing, but I feel almost back to full strength in every other way. I still haven’t booked myself in at the family planning clinic, but I promise you I’ll see to that over the next day or two. The stupid thing is that I’ve been feeling so close to Pete that the very minute I was confident I could do so without fear of problems I wanted him to make love to me. Don’t worry, we were only silly twice, Michael, but I am sure that you’ll understand now that I really do feel so much closer to him. A lot of that change I put down to the help you’ve given me, by reminding me that it’s what I invest in other people that eventually I’m paid back from them. Let’s hope it lasts. Please write again soon. And I really would love to see you again.”

  O’Hara silently taps his fingers on the arm of his chair. “So you never told her that you wanted to leave the priesthood to be with her?”

  Michael gives an ironic laugh. “Not in so many words.”

  “And so she thought you weren’t serious.”

  Michael shrugs his shoulders. He is close to tears. It is neither Janet’s flippancy nor Munyasya’s death that moves him, but merely the apparent helplessness within which he has trapped himself.

  O’Hara continues. “Because, it seems to me, that you’ve been speaking at cross purposes, all this ‘communication’ between the two of you - yourself and Miss Rowlandson - has been an illusion. You told her what originally was meant for my ears. It was in a code that I could have understood, but not Janet. Once started, the illusion grew, fed off itself. It grew so strong you believed it. As for her, she obviously has no such illusions. What you wrote was completely misinterpreted by her.”

  Michael interrupts. His voice is breaking with emotion at first but soon grows steadier and flatter, showing that he has already admitted to himself everything which O’Hara has said. “John, I can see all that now. There’s no need to state the obvious. I’ve been stupid, immature. I’ve behaved like a lovesick child on the one hand, and a spoilt one on the other, trying to be seen to reject what I know I want because I’m denied something else I think I’d rather have. All of this talk of not being able to cope with the work is nonsense. It’s just an excuse for my own stupidity.”

  “The fact remains, Michael, that you said you were ready to give up your work. The illusion is in command.”

  “No, it’s finished.” Michael is almost whispering, as if thinking his most private thoughts aloud. “I told you from the beginning that my mind was never made up. I’ve never been able to write it down. Perhaps I’ve never believed it. Certainly after talking to you today I’ve made up my mind once and for all. I do want to stay here - and as a priest.” He looks up and stares wide-eyed in innocence directly at O’Hara, who immediately turns away.

  For a while O’Hara offers nothing. It is clear that all that remains to be heard is his judgment. Michael realises this and continues to stare a
nxiously. “What do you think, John?”

  O’Hara sighs and turns to look directly at Michael. His blue eyes are open wide beneath their black brows, but they see nothing, for they are focused on an infinity beyond the room. They are searching inwards, but are nevertheless outwardly piercing. The intensity of the stare added to its uncharacteristic directness sets Michael’s nerves on edge and he begins to fidget with the bush hat he discarded when he first entered the room.

  At last O’Hara speaks. “I’ll ring Patrick right away.” Before Michael has understood the significance of this, O’Hara has stood and has crossed the room. He pauses by the settee, though, and places his hand reassuringly on Michael’s shoulder. “I’ll put things to you as I see them. First: I think you need a rest - a long rest. All these things you’ve created for yourself speak of a mind under stress. You say you’re suffering constant frustrations to such an extent that even you, yourself, will admit that they have had a debilitating effect on your work, and they have convinced you that your continued involvement here can bear no useful results. Secondly: there’s this morning to think of. When I was outside I heard Mulonzya talk like I’ve never heard before. He wants rid of you Michael. That at least is clear, and he will use this to get his way. I’ll bet he’s already at work making a case against you. Even before this morning he was no friend of ours. Now he’s most certainly going to be an enemy. With you out of the way for a while, things just might blow over. In a few months we’ll look at things afresh and see if it might be possible for you to come back. Mulonzya will remember, though. That is for sure. And as long as he thinks he can use it for his own benefit, I’m sure he’ll keep the whole thing alive. He’ll never let it drop, Michael. We could be involved with the police, the courts, heaven knows what and that would reflect on all of us, Michael, not just you.”